interesting read. I do feel the key point is the cost argument. Where everyone seems to think OpenSource automatically means cheaper, the need for training and support is often overlooked.

That's BS in the article. Everyone also automatically poitns to support and training as being reasons why open source is "more expensive." Yet when applying the same broad stroke - Zimbra is easier to learn and manage than Exchange by all experience that I have. This in the article is misdirection. You'll notice that they don't state that Zimbra costs more, they lead you to assume that conclusion and let you get there yourself. They knew that it wasn't supported so didn't state it, but there are ways to get people to make the assumption anyway.

This article is Microsoft's own rebuttal to a pro-Zimbra post elsewhere so I think that it lacks much merit as anything but that. For the most post it is accurate but the author does risk credibility at times by leading and overstating somethings (like NetApp not being an advantage - NetApp isn't, but the ability to chose it is, for example.)

And it is nice to say that DAG is awesome, but he points out when a Zimbra feature is "pro only" but when an Exchange feature is "enterprise only" he omits that clarification.

Also, the "Zimbra doesn't work with Outlook" bit is a flat out lie. He's desperate to state his case.

Overall, Exchange and Zimbra are very competitive. They make drastically different design decision and appeal to different audiences but of end users and of IT managers. You will find it very hard to pit them head to head because they are drastically different. Every fascet of them is different, so outside of their direct handling of SMTP, most other factors are subjective as to how they apply to your own organization.

Almost nothing in this article or, from what I can tell, the one that it is refuting, would be widely applicable in an SMB arena anyway.

interesting read. I do feel the key point is the cost argument. Where everyone seems to think OpenSource automatically means cheaper, the need for training and support is often overlooked.

That's BS in the article. Everyone also automatically poitns to support and training as being reasons why open source is "more expensive." Yet when applying the same broad stroke - Zimbra is easier to learn and manage than Exchange by all experience that I have. This in the article is misdirection. You'll notice that they don't state that Zimbra costs more, they lead you to assume that conclusion and let you get there yourself. They knew that it wasn't supported so didn't state it, but there are ways to get people to make the assumption anyway.

Open source is "more expensive" than $0 because of the need for skills, training, or support. It is not necessarily more expensive than other options.

The advantage to Open Source is that you can find much better support in online discussion forums than you can from the commercial vendor's paid support or their discussion forums. Paid support gives you one throat to choke, not necessarily better support than what you can find in online communities.

If you have ever tried to troubleshoot Oracle and used OTN, you know what I am referring to, when compared to all of the MySQL forums available.

Open source is "more expensive" than $0 because of the need for skills, training, or support. It is not necessarily more expensive than other options.

Yes, it is a tricky way to say it. Like saying a burger isn't free if someone else doesn't chew it for you. It makes people feel like open source is more expensive than the more expensive solutions - which also require skills, training and support - but "hostage support" rather than open, capital market style support.

Open source is "more expensive" than $0 because of the need for skills, training, or support. It is not necessarily more expensive than other options.

Yes, it is a tricky way to say it. Like saying a burger isn't free if someone else doesn't chew it for you. It makes people feel like open source is more expensive than the more expensive solutions - which also require skills, training and support - but "hostage support" rather than open, capital market style support.

And once you've learned linux you can eliminate your training and support going forward. I'm no genius and I've never had to pay for support to run Open Source software.

And once you've learned linux you can eliminate your training and support going forward. I'm no genius and I've never had to pay for support to run Open Source software.

Exactly. People like to gloss over Windows training costs and assume that they magically happen for free and that Linux is expensive and hard to learn. Very odd. And you only need a very limited amount of Linux to run a Zimbra server. Some, yes, But not much more than running a web server, for example.

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